College of Arts and Sciences News

Two Award-Winning Poets to Present at Wick Poetry Center

Posted Feb. 4, 2013

The Wick Poetry Center’s annual reading series resumes with two notable poets, Lisa Ampleman and Heather Kirn Lanier, on Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Kent Student Center. The event is free and open to the public.

“It is always a really nice opportunity for students to meet with visiting poets,” says Jessica Jewell, program coordinator for the Wick Poetry Center. “The poets do a Q & A for students in the Wick Poetry Corner.”

Lisa Ampleman and Heather Kirn Lanier, both award-winning poets, will read from their chapbooks, published by the Kent State University Press, as well as from their new works.

Ampleman has received several awards throughout her career, including the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize and was a finalist in the Ruth Lily Poetry Fellowship Contest. Ampleman’s chapbook of poems, I’ve Been Collecting This to Tell You, was a winner of the 2010 Wick Chapbook competition. Ampleman has poems featured in several books, including Cave Well, Court Green and Massachusetts Review, among others. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Beloit College and continued her education at George Mason University for her master’s.

Lanier is the author of Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach For America. She has received multiple recognitions throughout her nonfiction career, including the winner of the 2010 Wick Chapbook competition. She has noted work in The Best American Essays Series and the Atlantic Monthly. Lanier also has several published stories in literary journals, including The Southern Review, Fourth Genre and The Cincinnati Review, along with others.

The reading series is an annual event that hosts writers, both emerging and established, to provide readings, lectures and workshops. The series showcases writers and poets ranging from award winners, to young children.

“Since these poets have won the Wick competition, they have gone on to have good publications,” says Jewell. “We are thrilled to host these two poets and look forward to an exciting semester in our Reading Series."

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